Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question and for his observations about how it would affect not only British Columbia but the other provinces. The federal government may demand them to pay it back despite the fact that it was no fault of their own and that it occurred a number of years ago. As my hon. colleague has pointed out, the money has been invested at the municipal level . It has also been invested at the provincial level for things like health care, education and social services.
The overpayment problem we are addressing today points to something the Canadian Alliance, and before it the Reform Party of Canada, have pointed out consistently since arriving in this place in 1993: The Liberal government has been intent on addressing the deficit by downloading the problem to the provinces. It has done this consistently through the years it was balancing the budget.
The government has done this primarily in three ways: First, it cut transfer payments to the provinces. Second, it pursued a policy of overtaxation. Third, it benefited from a period of great economic prosperity to dramatically increase its tax revenues, especially GST revenue. We all recognize this. We do not need an economist to explain it to us.
With regard to the comments of my hon. colleague, we must remember that there is only one taxpayer. I think that was his underlying point. Clawing back the money would have a negative impact on British Columbia which is struggling to make ends meet and is making difficult choices that affect every British Columbian. It is not very popular when a provincial government does these things. It happened in Alberta under the present premier. It happened under Premier Harris in Ontario. The governments of those provinces had to make tough choices to get their fiscal houses in order.
British Columbia is trying to do the same thing. Clawing back the extra $121 million of overpayment from B.C. would be cruel and unusual punishment by a federal government that has shown itself to be inept at managing the nation's finances.
This is coming out more and more often. Almost a scandal a day has been coming to light to show how the federal government wastes taxpayer money. The bottom line, as my hon. colleague says, is that if the government claws back the money it will ultimately be reflected at the grassroots level. It will hit the municipalities, the regional districts, the counties and the provinces. Whether in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario or whatever province, it is at the municipal level that services will ultimately be cut to pay back the overpayment. That is where we will see the big difference.